This post is for Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy fans that are joining us on Saturday, June 26, for our driving tour. If you need more info about our weekend events, check out this link.
Please make sure at least one person in your car downloads these attachments/directions so you have them at hand during the driving tour. You might also want to print this page and the three maps shown below.
3. Directions back from Isabel’s beach house to her home in Westwood (which is 5 minutes away from Jeanette’s Wilshire Comstock, the final stop on our tour). Directions: Porto Marina back to Wilkins
NOTE: Some people want to cram in as much sightseeing as they can, particularly visiting the graves of Nelson and Jeanette. The best way to do it is to visit Nelson on Saturday prior to the driving tour (as you’ll only be a few miles away from our starting point) and to visit Jeanette Sunday morning before the luncheon at Sportsmans Lodge. On Sunday as you drive back from Forest Lawn, you can make a quick stop en route to Sportsmans on S. Mariposa St., where Nelson boarded his horse and had a small hideaway home for himself and Jeanette. If you want to see the graves plus have a mini-Hollywood tour as well, please download the following items:
Please note that I have not included directions to the cemeteries. This is because I don’t know where you will be driving from. So, below are general maps showing where they are. You can click on them to see larger photos.
A fan letter from the Altoona, PA Mishler Theatre production of the Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy story, “A Scandalous Affair” starring Hallie Neill and Theodore Lambrinos:
Dear Sharon
I just wanted to drop you a note to let you know I was at the showing of A Scandalous Affair at the Mishler Theatre in Altoona. My son took us and we had a wonderful time. Jeanette and Nelson would be proud to know their story was being told so lovingly and with truth.
Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy fans: Join me for a week of live-tweeting of what it’s like to be me – a film historian researching and interacting with anything and everyone that can provide more information about – you guessed it – Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy!
I meant to start this on Saturday while in Altoona, PA, for the performance of “A Scandalous Affair.” The Mishler Theater there has the original chandelier used in the 1937 Jeanette-Nelson movie Maytime. The story of how the theater got this amazing piece of movie history was what led to the show about their lives being produced there. Anyway, I attempted to take a photo of the chandelier with my new phone camera but was all thumbs attempting to upload the picture as a tweet. There was so much going on that I never had a free moment from them on to try to tweet anything. But…considering that some very awesome stuff has happened since then, I’m going to return to the original plan and fill everyone in.
Nelson Eddy's grave - with flowers and flags from the Mac/Eddy Club, 6/29/09
Every year, the Mac/Eddy Club holds a Birthday Bash honoring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy on the last Sunday of June. Afterwards, or usually on Nelson’s birthday (since it’s always close to the date of our event) some of the fans visit their graves and place flowers.
The gals that were responsible for purchasing the urns in front of the grave markers – on behalf of the Mac/Eddy Club – made their yearly visit on Nelson’s birthday. The next day they visited Jeanette’s grave. They graciously emailed us pictures to share with you, along with this email:
Thank you for a lovely meeting on Sunday. Everyone truly enjoyed the Brent Perry interview. We went to the Hollywood Forever cemetery to bring our birthday flowers for Nelson. When we arrived, no one had been there. We did our usual trimming and cleaning…We always put in an hour’s worth of trimming and grooming the site and placing our flowers before [the NEAS rep arrives], and add their flowers. We have been doing this for nearly 10 years.
I have attached the “after” (with our flowers) , complete with our flags for the Fourth of July to symbolize Nelson’s love of country. It would be nice if you would post the photo of the way we left the site with our flowers….Brian and Beryl [members from the U.K.] brought the lovely basket in the middle. Today, we made a special trip to Forest Lawn to visit Jeanette’s site and took two small bouquets, each containing two pink roses which we placed on each side of her crypt in memory of Nelson’s love for her.
Here are the photos showing the lovely flowers. Thank you, gals, for your loving care every year, as always!
Jeanette MacDonald's crypt with roses placed in her memory, 6/30/09
“I also grew up during the World War II years and can remember that families were issued food stamp rationing books allotted by the government to make food purchases. War stamps and war bonds were sold by the government at post offices and banks to help the war effort. Blackout drills were held throughout the war years. War bond rallies to help raise money were successful in helping to win the war. At these rallies, some movie stars would appear and I was fortunate to see Marlene Dietrich and Jeanette MacDonald, two well- known actresses at that time.”
More thoughts on the birthday of Jeanette MacDonald:
Implacabile Deasays:
Let the critics say what they will regarding Miss MacDonald’s vocalism. I found out what opera was by watching her movies. The charm and vitality that she exuded could serve this current generation of singers well.
What a beautiful lady…
mrmystersays:
Dea – J. MacD was perhaps the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I met her once backstage at a performance of Faust in Hartford; she had come to watch the tenor as she was singing the role of Marguerite the following week in Philadelphia. MacD had come back stage to see D. Kirsten after the performance; I happened to be in Kirsten’s dressing room when J. came in — unbelievable beauty. The hair! The skin color! The sculpted face …. the nuanced and vivid speaking voice! NOW, if only her singing voice had been able to match that! But it did what was needed at the time, and as to you, she brought operatic experience to millions of people. God bless her; I loved her! But I preferred to listen to Steber and Kirsten and Traubel and Flagstad!
Jeanette MacDonald & Nelson Eddy in Naughty Marietta
Rotten Tomatoes was honored to sit down with Betty White to discuss her Five Favorite Films (hint: she’s a romantic at heart) and to revisit her incredible career in Hollywood — an impressive body of work that includes hosting her own self-titled talk show, her own variety show, creating iconic characters like “The Happy Homemaker” Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls, and winning five Emmys — all before jumping headfirst into movie roles. Read on to learn Betty White’s Five Favorite Films and hear her insights into great television writing, silly moments on the set of The Proposal, and her take on the art of the conversation.
Her five favorite films: Naughty Marietta, Out of Africa, Lost Horizon, The Bridges of Madison County, Kramer vs. Kramer. Re: her first choice:
I don’t think I’d be in this business if it wasn’t for Naughty Marietta, with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. I was 14 and I was SO in love with Nelson Eddy I thought it was the end of the world, and I didn’t just like Jeanette MacDonald, I was Jeanette MacDonald! You know, at 14. And at 14 I also thought, Nelson Eddy married somebody and I thought he needed a much younger woman. I think I saw Naughty Marietta 48 times. I wasn’t even interested in show business until then; I did school plays and that kind of thing, but I hadn’t thought of it as a career until I got hooked.
Here’s a screenshot of a real estate website that shows the two most recent owners of Jeanette MacDonald’s home, Twin Gables, and also, the last purchase price.
The Hollywood actress Virginia Bruce has always been of interest to Nelson Eddy fans, if only because she co-starred with him in the 1939 film Let Freedom Ring.
Not many people know that Let Freedom Ring was originally supposed to co-star Jeanette MacDonald, and that it was planned as a follow-up film for Nelson with Jeanette in 1935 right after Naughty Marietta!
Of course there’s an added interest in Virginia Bruce because we know that she and Nelson dated for a time – not in late 1938 when they were filming Let Freedom Ring, but back in 1934 in Nelson’s early days at MGM!
Don’t forget that Jeanette MacDonald and Virginia Bruce also worked together in Jeanette’s first Hollywood film, The Love Parade. Virginia was one of Jeanette’s ladies-in-waiting.
But it is obviously Virginia’s connection to Nelson Eddy that most interests us, and what would have interested him beyond the obvious physical beauty. He went for young blonds, true, but not airheads. Virginia obviously had a keen mind; the biography reveals that at one time she thought to run for California legislature.
Scott O’Brien has done an excellent job in putting together Virginia Bruce’s life story, and his book features several interviews with close friends and family. They provide a more personal view of the woman although sadly, she seems to have kept very much to herself. Her daughter with John Gilbert also did not share much of the intimate details with the next generation. It was up to them to rediscover Virginia through memorabilia and their somewhat limited personal interaction with her. O’Brien quotes one of her nephews: “She was very independent. She was in charge…like Hillary Clinton…a woman in charge. She wasn’t subservient. Maybe she was subservient to her husbands, but she was headstrong, especially for women in those days. ”
O’Brien also quotes Virginia Bruce: “Perhaps part of my tragedy will be that I do spoil men. I seem to be the type to attract men that are much stronger and more forceful than I am….Most of my theories about the relationships between men and women spring, naturally, from my marriage to John [Gilbert].” Of course, her short marriage to him was doomed due to his drinking. But it’s interesting that along with Nelson Eddy, she also dated Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart and other major Hollywood players.
Obviously Virginia Bruce had her personal demons. They are mentioned candidly in the book, because Scott O’Brien’s sources did open up to him. I wish they had even been more candid but I know from researching Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, there is often a tendency for sources to want to make these people look as good as possible, playing down the negatives. They don’t want to blurt out the bad stuff. They think they are protecting the person…and perhaps they are. But for posterity’s sake, we can lie to ourselves but we really do have inquiring minds…and we want to know all we can about how this lovely, gentle young actress became a lonely alcoholic in later years, despite having children and grandchildren.
Scott O’Brien’s picture of Virginia’s later life rings true to my own experience. Virginia Bruce was in and out of the Motion Picture Home during the same years that I knew Jeanette’s sister Blossom Rock, who also lived there. I was always interested in meeting and speaking with residents that had known or worked with Jeanette or Nelson. Yet I never interviewed Virginia Bruce. I visited her a couple of times but she was not particularly sociable or chatty. She was there once because she broke her hip; I don’t remember all the details but we heard that she was an alcoholic. (Of course, you couldn’t drink when you were there in hospital area, although some who lived in the Lodge or bungalows bought their own liquor across the street, or had friends smuggle it in to them.) The book notes that she was also treated there for cancer and cirrhosis. And yes, what I really remember about that is that here was a very ill woman but – she still smoked!
That never ceased to amaze me, because many in the Motion Picture Home were chain smokers – as was Jeanette’s sister Blossom.
I did not immediately recognize Virginia Bruce when I met her; she was heavy and much changed. She seemed pretty much a loner and regretted that she ended up her life cooped up in a small hospital room. Some actors, like Blossom Rock, made the best of life there and kept a busy schedule. Larry Fine of The Three Stooges was another optimist; despite a stroke that debilitated him even more than Blossom’s stroke, he’d set up a daily card game with his cronies and they’d play and smoke together for hours at a time. Sometimes Moe Howard would join them and they’d laugh about the good ol’ days and welcome any other old-timer who wanted to hang out.
But Virginia Bruce wasn’t like that, she seemed more bitter. And it’s borne out by a poignant quote from the book made by her: “Do you think when I’m gone anyone will remember that I had awfully dreamy eyes?” And another: ” Do you know Norma Shearer is just down the hall? She was the biggest of them all and here she is, blind and dying, after all that, all that fame and riches and now this. Maybe I haven’t had it so tough.”
I highly recommend reading Virginia Bruce – Under My Skinby Scott O’Brien. And I applaud him for writing about a lesser Hollywood star that others might not have bothered with. Her story is compelling. There are lots of pictures -including some with Nelson Eddy (take another look at the cover!) and some discussion of Nelson’s relationship with Virginia Bruce. After I finished reading it, I put Let Freedom Ring on my DVD player to watch, since I had a new understanding of what Virginia Bruce was all about. For once – I watched her throughout the movie instead of Nelson Eddy.
And maybe that’s my highest praise to a fellow movie star biographer – if after reading it you want to revisit that star’s films again – you’ve done your job.
Jeanette MacDonald